The Way We Were
by SophieEmma97
Summary: Lily never expects to see James again, but a chance meeting at a train station draws her back into his world. Alongside the Order of the Phoenix, they struggle against the dark forces which have claimed the lives of their friends and against their own past, which can't stay buried forever. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**The Way We Were**

_This is an AU with one simple change: what if Lily and James had drifted apart at the end of school? _

Alice and Frank had been dead for nearly a year, and Lily was no closer to finding out why. The anniversary was getting closer and with it came the pressing sense of time running out. She hadn't thought life would be like this, when she had thought of the future at all. She had always expected to be an Auror, until they had died, and now every day she sifted through Remberalls and waited for the right memory to change everything.

Later, she would remember that particular thought, at that particular moment-_the right memory_-as though she had conjured him into existence. It took her a minute to be certain, but only a minute, and then she called out his name without thinking.

'James!'

He turned around and Lily was suddenly conscious of how she looked. His face broke into a smile as he hurried towards her. 'Lily'. He exhaled as he said her name, so that it sounded like a sigh of relief, and pulled her into a hug. 'It's been too long'.

It had been too long. She realised that now as she pulled back and saw how much he had changed, changed in slow, lasting ways. He was taller now, lankier, and the lines of his face had filled out into sharp cheekbones and a strong nose. His glasses were different too, thinner and trendier. He looked handsome, she realised, and grown-up.

He was waiting for her to say something. That was new too. The James she remembered tripped over his words in his eagerness. He didn't patiently wait for her to catch her breath. 'It has'.

She hadn't seen James in three years, since they had left school. That last month had been so busy, and things had been so awkward between them, that she wasn't even sure if they'd said goodbye properly. When she thought of Hogwarts, he was in every memory. There he was at fifteen charming paper roses to grow out of her desk; thirteen, tiny, thrashing her as they practised duelling and sneaking her dessert later to apologise; lying next to her on the floor, seventeen, tipsy and talking all night. She hadn't realised then that he was her friend, but she realised now that he was a stranger.

The silence hung between them for a moment, and she wanted more than anything to ask how he had been. How did that conversation start? He was probably rushing off somewhere and didn't have time for small-talk, and she couldn't bear it if he said no. It took her by surprise when he asked, 'Want to grab a coffee?'

'Yeah, that sounds good'.

The silence was different as they walked together through the crowds of the station. He looked over once, about to say something, but changed his mind.

The world outside grew dimmer, and the traffic was muffled by the rain, which had picked up to a roar. Behind the steamy station windows, fat drops bounced off the ground and boomeranged into pedestrians' socks. The pavement had become a sea of turtles, with hunched backs and black umbrella shells, scrambling away from the water. Stepping outside was like entering a fishbowl, with soft gold rays cutting in from the station and sound and light and everything suspended in the raindrops.

They made it halfway across the road before stopping on an island. He grabbed her hand, damp, warm, and he was laughing and rain dripped off his eyelids and pooled on his lips. Neon billboards lit up the street, beaming above the shuffling grey pedestrians.

James pulled her into the warm confines of a cafe. The barista smiled widely, wickedly, at James as they arrived. Ordering their drinks, he was open, comfortable, laughing with the ease of an old friend. He was obviously a regular.

The cafe had low wooden beams with lovers' initials burned into them, and high-backed booths padded in light blue velvet. It was illuminated by twinkling lights which, on closer inspection, were tiny glowing flowers growing into the walls. Bored of standing quietly beside him, Lily found a seat and a moment later he joined her, sliding a drink across the table.

'So,' he said, 'how have you been?'

She laughed. 'Better for seeing you', she said, and then regretted it.

He took it lightly, saying 'Well, you've certainly made my day. You look really well'. Did she? She felt flushed and was acutely conscious of her dripping hair. 'Thanks, you too'. She gestured to the street outside. 'Do you live around here?'

'Not too far. I work under the station'.

'Me too'.

'Really? Doing what?'

'I work in law enforcement, searching Remembralls'.

'Oh.' Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't that. 'You were on the Auror stream, weren't you?'

'How did you know?'

'I was too, but down south, in Cornwall. I only moved to the city after I graduated'. That wasn't quite an answer, when she thought about it.

'I've been here years', she said instead. 'I never thought I'd end up in a city but I love it. Shops are open past eight pm and it's changed my life'.

James laughed 'You'll have to show me around then. I still feel like a tourist'. He paused. 'Why did you stop your training?'

Lily looked away. He was a stranger now, she reminded herself. He couldn't know not to ask, and she couldn't expect him to care anymore. She wished suddenly that she'd never seen him; she wanted to escape back into her flat, around people who knew her now instead of knowing her before. 'I wasn't up to it'.

'I can't imagine that'. He was leaning forward with that earnest expression she knew so well, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. 'You were the best of us'.

'I passed my exams, I just-' His words rang in her ears. She _was_ the best of them, past tense. 'I couldn't carry on after Alice'.

There it was. The name she carried like a guilty conscience, _Alice_, her best friend; Alice who had loved the Backstreet Boys, Alice who had knitted her baby a hundred hats, Alice who was dead and cold in the ground.

Lily still knew what Alice would have said to James, but she didn't know what Lily would say next. That was her quietest guilt: that she was mourning the part of herself that had died with Alice too. James didn't know what to say either, and was looking down at his hands. He had lost a friend too, of course, but his life had carried on.

'I couldn't believe it first, about Peter', he finally said. 'God, you must hate me for even saying that, but I still can't get over it. I feel like I never even knew him'.

'You couldn't have known,' she said automatically.

'I should have known. When I heard the news, the whole world stopped. Everything's different now'.

Everything _was _different now. James Potter was sitting in front of her, looking as though his heart had broken, and blaming himself. 'It's not your fault,' she said, and this time she meant it. Peter Pettigrew, James' friend, whose only family had been Frank, Peter who had sold his cousin and vanished without a trace, eluded her still. She searched for him daily in dusty memories but was no closer to an answer.

'We'll find him', James said, and she looked up in surprise. He had read her thoughts as easily as if she had spoken them aloud and spoke with a confidence she didn't feel. 'If anyone can, you can'.

'I can neither confirm nor deny the nature of my work,' she said, shooting him a sideways glance. 'All law enforcement investigations are strictly confidential'.

He laughed, just as she'd hoped, and said, 'Your secret's safe with me'.

'So how was Cornwall?' she asked, and he launched into stories of sheep and straddling motorbikes with Sirius, careening down country roads and lighting up the sky with glittering balls of flame which rained down onto the vast shoreline.

'I missed you'. She didn't realise until she said it.

His shoulders stiffened. 'How about you? How's London?' He asked the question awkwardly and her heart sank. Still, she responded, telling him about floating bookshops above cobbled lanes, rumblings from giant serpents in the underground tunnels, and her housemate who had covered the flat in a deep green sludge which still clung to the gaps between the floorboards.

'You miss it, don't you?' he asked as her laugh trailed off.

'Miss what? The housemate?'

'You miss being an Auror. I can tell when you talk about your life here'.

She had forgotten how he could do that. No one ever paid attention like James did, and he was subtle about it too. He would be laughing and gesturing and setting something on fire and all the while measuring her feelings and gauging what caused them. His eyes were shadowed in the coffee shop light - when had it gotten so dark? The cafe was starting to empty and the barista was stacking chairs onto tables.

'I miss it every day'. She smiled slightly. 'But my work lets me focus on the problem I want to solve instead of dealing with whatever crisis pops up. That's what I care about right now'.

'You do, don't you?' Now James was inscrutable and the glinting light against his glasses hid his eyes. 'You really care'. Time hung suspended for a moment as he thought and later, in Lily's memory, the moment lasted a lifetime. He seesawed between two choices, delicately, and then tipped firmly down and changed everything, saying, 'That's what we're doing: that's all that we're doing. We're solving it'.

'What do you mean?'

He stood up, pushed away his chair, and together they left the cafe. He didn't speak until they were on the street outside and had pulled up their hoods against the gentle grey drizzle. 'I can't explain now, but I'll meet you here tomorrow night and we'll talk'.

'Okay'. James hugged her goodbye, and Lily walked home in a daze. Neither noticed the broad black shadow which peeled away from the wall and loomed behind him until Lily turned the corner and James, half smiling, began to walk home.

_Thank you for reading! This is my first FanFiction so any feedback would mean the world to me. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

_Thank you all so much for the feedback on the last chapter! It really motivated me to keep writing. _

_I'd love to hear your thoughts on the rating - I went for Teen, but I'm not sure if this should be rated Mature as there's a little profanity and possibly some violence later on, though not graphic. _

_Also, the last chapter (and the title!) was inspired by the song Here We Are Again by CAGGIE. It's a really lovely song and I just wanted to share it with you all. _

James felt the eyes of the black dog through the shadows. It padded behind him as he walked home. None of the pedestrians noticed it - magic was remarkable - but he couldn't ignore the quiet footsteps splashing on the rain-drenched pavement. Padfoot, James knew, was annoyed.

They were on the steps of Grimmauld Place before Sirius transformed. His hair stuck to his cheekbones and he flipped it away in a move James knew he had practiced since he was thirteen.

'Well?' James asked as they entered the house. 'Just say it'.

Sirius didn't say anything. He carefully removed his boots, placed them neatly beside the door, hung up his coat to dry, and walked upstairs without a word. Remus emerged from the kitchen covered in flour and asked, 'What's gotten into him?'.

The house was dimly lit, even with all the lights on, no matter what attempts they made to brighten it up. It sucked light into it like a malign force and the dimness bubbled out of the walls and made the air clammy and cold. James always felt like a visitor, even though it was his home, because their clutter seemed to sit on top of it like suitcases strewn in a hotel room; there James' broomstick leaned against a pile of his books, there Remus' muddy boots and discarded cough drops, Sirius' things always neatly packed away, but under it all creaky floorboards and thick walls which swallowed all the noise they made. Still, it was their home, no matter that they could never keep track of the number of hallways which appeared and vanished. Currently it smelled faintly of cake.

'I'm meeting Lily tomorrow,' replied James, 'and I'm going to tell her everything'.

Remus' face was smeared with handprints of flour and he was recovering from a bout of food poisoning, so it was hard to gauge his facial expression. Still, James had the distinct impression that he disapproved.

All he said was, 'Well, I'm sure you know what you're doing'. James followed him through to the kitchen. Remus was in the middle of baking and the countertops were coated in dough. The contents of the fridge were strewn across the floor as Remus searched for the suspect food which had incapacitated him for three days.

'Don't let him see the kitchen like this', James said, 'or he'll move out again'.

Remus laughed and glanced around the countertops for a cloth. 'That takes me back. It's like we're in school all over again'.

James couldn't help bringing her up again. 'Not really. Lily hated me back in school'.

Remus smiled. 'Nah, she didn't'.

* * *

It was a crisp clear afternoon. The rain had blown away the stickiness in the air and the sun shone blindingly on the damp roads.

Lily woke that morning feeling ill — much too ill to meet James. Not that her illness had anything to do with meeting him, of course. The knots in her stomach and choking feeling in her throat weren't nerves, because if they were then seeing him must mean something to her. Which it did not.

Even though it didn't matter, she spent twenty minutes deciding what to wear and another ten pinning and repinning her hair. Taking out the pins again as she made toast for dinner, Lily could feel Kitty watching her.

'You look weird'.

Lily pointedly did not look over. Instead she focused on buttering her toast without using magic, a challenging task with a housemate who used Muggle cutlery to craft elaborate catapults or as handmade chandeliers. The final remaining knife was twisted into a corkscrew and Lily kept it hidden it in the back of a cupboard to protect it from further experimentation.

'Really weird,' Kitty continued, ignoring Lily's attempts to ignore her.

Kitty had a knack for noticing unusual behaviour but lacked the subtlety to keep it to herself. She was socially astute but not adept, navigating precariously through life with her combination of obliviousness and generosity. The only time Kitty came into her own was around her older sister Molly's children, who adored when she blew something up and laughed delightedly when she conjured them floating chocolates which melted in their mouths. Sometimes Lily thought Kitty might be the brightest witch of their generation, but she would never tell her that.

'I didn't sleep well,' Lily said, abandoning the knife and eating her toast over the sink.

'Nightmare? You know Mercury is in retrograde'.

Lily laughed. 'I did not know that. When did you get into astrology?'

'You bought me that book and then I read eight more books and attended a short lecture series'.

'I'm glad you liked it'.

'So why aren't you sleeping?'

Finishing her toast, Lily straightened up. 'I bumped into James Potter yesterday and it's thrown me off balance a little'.

'He's the hot one or the loud one?'

'The loud one'.

'Bad luck. What did he want?'

'He wants me to meet him to talk about a project, or maybe an organisation? He was pretty mysterious about the whole thing. Apparently they're solving-' Lily's voice broke a little. 'They're solving it'.

Lily didn't know what reaction she'd expected, but it wasn't what she got. Kitty stood very still, but she stared at Lily without blinking, without moving at all, and she didn't respond.

'What is it? Now you look weird'.

Kitty straightened her shoulders and the strangeness fell away. 'Sorry, lost you for a second there. What do you think he means?'

'No idea, but I'll find out tonight'.

Kitty looked again at her, very intently, and smiled. 'Well, count me intrigued'.

'See you later!'

Lily grabbed her bag and swept out of the flat. Watching her leave, Kitty shook her head and said quietly, 'James, you cocky shit'.

* * *

James was early. James was never early and yet there he was, waiting for her. He smiled when he saw her — this, she firmly reminded herself, was only politeness, nothing more. He still looked handsome, annoyingly.

'Evening!' he called as she drew closer.

She nearly hugged him when she reached him, but his hands were deep in his pockets and she was suddenly afraid that he wouldn't hug her back, leaving her clinging to him like a sloth on a branch. A tall, annoyingly handsome branch.

'Hey you,' she said instead. 'You look cold'. Her hand was halfway to her scarf, about to offer it to him, but he shook his head.

'It's good. Bracing. Brrr'.

'Shall we?' she asked, gesturing to the cafe.

'Walk with me,' he said instead. They started to slowly walk through the city towards a nearby park. He was obviously cold in his thin jacket, but Lily didn't mention it again.

'You look cute,' he said, and her heart jolted. 'Like a penguin'.

_Oh._ Now that he said it, she realised he was right. In her enormous wool coat, her thick jumper, plus the beanie and the scarf, she couldn't drop her arms and had to extend them like a marching penguin. Still, she was toasty while the tips of his ears were turning red. And it wasn't nice to hear you looked like a penguin from someone who — well. Let him be cold then.

'Why couldn't we talk about this yesterday?' she asked.

'I'm sorry to leave you on a cliffhanger. Telling you felt like the right thing, but it's also not really my secret to tell. I had to run it by a few people first'.

Andas they walked and the night drew closer, James told her a story of courage and deception — of a small group who worked on the fringes of the law to find the source of the darkness that had touched their lives and which was growing in the city like a parasite. He told her about undercover meetings and identity swaps, and of lives lost and treachery found too late, and finally he told her a secret she thought she carried alone.

He told her the story of a chance encounter with another forgotten friend, a strange-tasting drink, and an offer made as everything became pink and purple and swayed around her. He told her he knew what Snape had promised, words turned fuzzy by the enchanted drink. He told her what she already knew, that he had offered her power and she refused; that he had told her someone she loved would die, and she refused. A few weeks later, Alice was dead, refusing to step aside as Lily had refused.

'How could you know that?'

They had reached the small statue of Peter Pan. James looked at the little boy and suddenly seemed very grown up indeed. 'We've been watching for a long time. We knew he'd approach you eventually'.

Lily turned to face James. Around them life in the park flourished. Strangers passed each other and split apart again and overhead birds sang their final song as night drew closer. Amidst the laughing children and the nearby dog digging through the bushes, it was hard to imagine the darkness he spoke of. But it had touched her life and left it in shredded pieces. Gone was the future she had imagined so clearly it had felt real; gone was how she imagined herself, as brave, as kind, leaving behind someone who survived rather than lived. That casual encounter, which had felt so random, had changed everything. It was impossible to imagine drawing that darkness closer again.

'Why tell me this? You know I can't help you — you know I let her die'.

James looked at her, really looked at her, and said, 'You never had a choice, not really. She was always going to die'. His face dropped. 'God, that's insensitive. I didn't mean it like that. But you have to understand that there's a bigger fight here, bigger than us both, and there aren't many who would have refused'.

'She did'.

'Yes. She did'.

They carried on their walk as dusk fell down over the park. James finally said, 'We're looking for Peter'.

'Good'.

'Albus thinks we're getting closer'.

This surprised Lily enough that she almost stopped walking. 'Who?'

'Albus Dumbledore'.

'You're on first name terms now?'

James grinned and ruffled his hair. Lily remembered catching him in first, second, third year ruffling it to look like he had just climbed off a broom and the guilty look he shot her. Now he did it without thinking.

Professor Dumbledore-_Albus_-had never approved of the hair ruffling. She remembered clearly the only time she had ever disappointed him, at the end of the awful time in their final year. His office had been cold and his words were as flat and hard as slate and every time James' hand shot to his hair Dumbledore had watched it until it dropped.

Thank god that was over now.

'We work together now. He thinks you could help us, if you want. He thinks you could help us find him'.

They were nearly at the edge of the park and Lily could hardly see him in the dim light of the evening. This was the next moment she remembered after, but this time she didn't really have a choice.

If James had known her better, he would have known that Lily avoided magic whenever possible. He would know that she always bought The Big Issue and volunteered at a food bank but hadn't yet visited Alice's grave. He would know that she saw Peter every day in strangers passing by and in reflections in windows. He would know that Lily was a different person to the one he remembered, who would have agreed instantly to risk her life, but he couldn't know that now. So there was no way he could know that the void inside her was slowly ripping open and out of it were spilling all the rage and grief she had held inside for a year, and that she didn't recognise her own voice saying, 'Okay. I'll do whatever you need'.

_This is a shorter, slightly filler chapter - the meaty stuff is coming next. Thank you all so much for reading! _


End file.
